Accessibility Team Meeting Notes: Aug 27, 2026

These is the bi-weekly notes for the AccessibilityAccessibility Accessibility (commonly shortened to a11y) refers to the design of products, devices, services, or environments for people with disabilities. The concept of accessible design ensures both “direct access” (i.e. unassisted) and “indirect access” meaning compatibility with a person’s assistive technology (for example, computer screen readers). (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accessibility) Team meeting that happens on alternate Thursday in #accessibility. You can read the full transcript here or see the full meeting schedule.

📣 Announcements

• Help shape the Accessibility Lab plugin
• WordPress 7.1 “Mary Lou” was released on August 19th as scheduled!
• A call for volunteers was published for WP 7.2.

Accessibility Labs PluginPlugin A plugin is a piece of software containing a group of functions that can be added to a WordPress website. They can extend functionality or add new features to your WordPress websites. WordPress plugins are written in the PHP programming language and integrate seamlessly with WordPress. These can be free in the WordPress.org Plugin Directory https://wordpress.org/plugins/ or can be cost-based plugin from a third-party.

• Discussed setting up separate planning meetings for the Accessibility Labs plugin to focus on its direction, implementation, and initial groundwork.
• Agreed that the regular bi-weekly team chat should remain focused on team updates, while the Labs discussion can happen during alternate weeks as a separate meeting.
• The first meeting will help determine the scope and frequency of future discussions; meeting every two weeks may not be necessary.
• Participants were asked to share their availability for the first async planning meeting. Initial participants tagged: troychaplin, williampatton, aduth, ,@annezazu and others who would like to be involved.

WordPress CoreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress. & BlockBlock Block is the abstract term used to describe units of markup that, composed together, form the content or layout of a webpage using the WordPress editor. The idea combines concepts of what in the past may have achieved with shortcodes, custom HTML, and embed discovery into a single consistent API and user experience. Editor

• WordPress 7.1 was released last week, and planning is now underway for 7.1.1 and 7.2.
• Several items are already milestoned for 7.2, with planning progressing.

Accessibility-Ready Program

• The first theme has successfully passed the updated accessibility-ready guidelines.
• A proposal is being drafted to improve how the accessibility-ready tag is moderated in the Theme Directory and provide better tools for managing the program. Feedback is welcome. The proposal is based on discussions held during WCUS Contributor DayContributor Day Contributor Days are standalone days, frequently held before or after WordCamps but they can also happen at any time. They are events where people get together to work on various areas of https://make.wordpress.org/ There are many teams that people can participate in, each with a different focus. https://make.wordpress.org/support/handbook/getting-started/getting-started-at-a-contributor-day/ and is still a work in progress.
  • Proposal: Proposal to update accessibility-ready tag moderation in the theme directory

Documentation about Web Accessibility

• Completed cross-linking of resources with the accessibility-ready requirements and made the resource setup more consistent.
• Added a sitemap for easier access to the knowledge base.
• Added a new page explaining What is the accessibility-ready program.
• Updated the language around plugin recommendations.
• Updated documentation on Readability and Digital Documents.
• Updated the Alternative text for images documentation to include the decorative image toggle introduced in WordPress 7.1.
• Added a new topic on Disappearing toast notifications under patterns to avoid.
• Remaining documentation work is being tracked in GitHub issue #85, with a goal to complete the remaining updates over the next few weeks.

Props to @joedolson and @rianrietveld for providing updates around the working groups!

#accessibility, #meeting-notes